GUILDERLAND — Volunteer firefighters in the town’s various departments hope a year from now to be training in a new tower.

On Sept. 19, the Guilderland Town Board unanimously agreed to have Jahnke & Sons Construction build the new $1 million metal facility.

The original masonry tower, located in the Northeastern Industrial Park, was built a half-century ago, according to David Messercola, representing the Town of Guilderland Fire Chiefs in making a presentation to the board.

“Back then,” said Messercola, “we built masonry towers, and we burn very differently in those towers.”

Engineering reports over the last decade, he said, have made it “very apparent that structurally the building is fine, but it is not structurally fine to continue burning it.” The last engineer’s report said “for all intents and purposes … burning was condemned.”

Firefighters from Guilderland have therefore been training at a facility in Colonie. To be a volunteer firefighter in New York, the state mandates over 100 hours of training.

For the last 10 years, local fire districts have been setting aside money for a new training center, Messercola said, which now totals $232,000. Prefab construction is much less expensive than masonry, he said, so that will be used.

Albany County has committed $500,000 to the project.

Then, Messercola reported, contributions from the town for $32,000 each in 2023 and again in 2024 bring the total to  $796,000. And other 2024 commitments, of $25,000 each, from six Guilderland fire districts and the Knox Fire District, come to another $175,000 — bringing the total to $971,000.

The construction estimates total $1,024,607. “So, even though we’re showing a deficit of about $53,000, that deficit is approximate … We don’t know if it’s real or not,” said Messercola.

He said, for example, that as much as $100,000 might be saved on the foundation work.

Plans for the new training center are for a single building with a four-story tower at one end, a two-story section with a pitched roof in the middle, and two burn rooms at the other end.

The four-story section is “very important for training in high-rise buildings, which are far more dominant on the east end of town,” said Messercola. The middle section replicates residential buildings, “the majority of what we deal with,” he said, and gives firefighters practice on pitched roofs.

The burn rooms are lined with material similar to that used on space shuttles for heat shielding, Messercola said “so you can create fires in these buildings that are contained within those rooms so you don’t damage the structure.”

The new center is to be built a short distance from the current tower, which will stay in place, at the site where firefighters practice putting out car fires and extricating victims. That area will be moved to a nearby location.

Once the contract is signed with Jahnke & Sons Construction, a company based in Missouri that has built several local training centers, materials should be on site in six months, Messercola said.

“We’re looking for a spring start date for the tower,” said Messercola of the construction schedule. “We hope to have this thing up and operating by this time next year. We need to get this … operating so we can continue forward training our members.”

Other business

In other business at its Sept. 19 meeting, the Guilderland Town Board:

— Appointed these members to the Board of Assessment Review as recommended by the town’s assessor: Teresa Freeman as a permanent member with a five-year term, and Nancy Klopfer and William Meehan as alternate members, each with a one-year term;

— Agreed to pay $1,244,000 up front for a culvert on Foundry Road where it crosses the Hungerkill; the money is to be reimbursed in full by the state’s Department of Transportation;

— Agreed to close 36 “old, inactive escrow accounts” as recommended by fiscal officer Jessica Gulliksen. The accounts, Supervisor Peter Barber said, have either no money in them or “very token amounts left over”;

— Agreed to put out a request for proposals for a six-year lease for carts at the town’s golf course. The current lease six-year is for 68 carts and the new one would be for 80.

A memo from the town’s golf director, Casey Childs, to Barber says, “The funding for the carts comes from golf course revenues and increased play the past few years will justify the increase in our cart fleet”;

— Heard from Barber that the Gary Sinise Foundation awarded funds to Guilderland Emergency Medical Services for three Stryker Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System devices. The LUCAS devices provide mechanical chest compressions to patients having heart attacks. This allows paramedics to do other things besides chest compressions while reviving a patient, said Barber. “They don’t have four hands; they only have two hands”;

— Learned that the town is running a Household Hazardous Waste Day for residents on Saturday, Oct. 28, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at highway department garage on Frenchs Mill Road; and

— Heard that the annual Recycling Extravaganza at Farnsworth Middle School will be held on Saturday, Oct. 21, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

“It’s a fun event,” said Barber. “It’s got everything from bicycles to sneakers to electronics.”